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Thursday, 26 May 2016

Edits and family trees

"it was a long walk!"

Coming to the end of edits - the ones I hope will be Final Edits, and am astounded to note that even at this late stage (after several edits) I can still play around with the word and sentence order and make improvements. I am beginning to think that a person to go on and on improving a book for a lifetime, but I really want to get on an write another story.

It is becoming clear to me that my writing is sometimes muddled.I don't get the sentences in the right order so that the flow of words is graceful and the thought processes are clear. Sometimes, I need to change one sentence's position in the paragraph and then it is fine. Sometimes I need to move a paragraph to make the thought process clear. Another notch on the learning curve.

Side by side with this I have been investigating my family tree on my mother's side. My father's side I have, thanks to a diligent gentleman who gifted me a copy of his research and then disappeared from my life. I'm doing it via UK Census Online and find that I don't have to go back very far before my great grandparents were "making their mark" on a marriage certificate. On the other side of the family, there were teachers - what a pity they didn't get together!

It also seems that people often didn't bother to record births and deaths, which is frustrating. The Society of Genealogists says: "The records of civil registration in England & Wales which commenced on 1 July 1837, relate to the birth, marriage and death of an individual. In Scotland records began in 1855 and in Ireland in 1864 (n.b. Irish non-Catholic marriages were recorded from 1845.)" So pre-1837 it is back to parish records, not always easy to access.

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About Jen

Welcome to my blog-cum-website! My stories are often set in Scotland, Dublin or the north of England. I like reading suspenseful novels with the tang of adventure as well as romance, so my books aim to include all three themes. I'm rarely without a camera in my pocket and most of the pics on my blog are mine. My home is in the beautiful Tyne Valley midway between Hexham and Newcastle.